In the wake of avian influenza outbreaks in the region, Alberta poultry producers have been granted a late participation option to sign up for the federal/provincial AgriStability income stabilization program. Provincial Ag Minister Nate Horner on Wednesday announced the two levels of government have reached an agreement to allow poultry producers late participation in AgriStability […] Read more
Alberta poultry sector gets late entry for AgriStability
Participation deadline extended to end of month
Farm cash receipts on the rise, StatCan shows
MarketsFarm — Farm cash receipts improved 13.7 per cent during the first three quarters of 2022, Statistics Canada reported Monday. From January to September, those receipts reached $66.7 billion. That increase of more than $8 billion was due to higher receipts for crops, livestock and program payments. The report noted crop receipts rose 7.3 per […] Read more
Initial drought list ready for 2022 livestock tax deferrals
Much of Manitoba, southern Alberta designated for 2022
Many of the Prairie livestock producers forced by drought to make “difficult herd management decisions” in the 2022 income tax year are now eligible to defer the taxable income from those decisions. Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Tuesday released the initial list of designated regions in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan where livestock tax deferral […] Read more
Record income trumps rising costs, interest rates, says lender
Overall, farmers are in ‘a good spot,’ but warns higher rates will be around for a while
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farmers are in good financial shape and able to weather both soaring costs and higher interest rates, says the country’s biggest ag lender. “We are in a unique position where record farm revenues are helping to offset the impact of a sharp increase in input costs and rising interest rates,” said J.P. Gervais, Farm Credit […] Read more
On paper, farmers are richer than last year
Reading Time: < 1 minute The value of farm assets rose 10 per cent last year and now tops $627 billion, says Statistics Canada. Most of the farm equity is in land and its collective value reached $577 billion, up 11 per cent, but the growth in wealth was not evenly distributed. Farm equity in Ontario was up nearly 20 […] Read more
2021 was a very robust year for Canadian ag
Reading Time: < 1 minute Canadian farmers contribute nearly $140-billion to the economy, says a new snapshot of the sector from AgCanada. “Despite COVID-19, the drought in Western Canada, the flood in British Columbia and other trade disruptions, the overall agriculture sector saw growth in 2021 and is expected to continue to perform well in 2022,” the department said. It […] Read more
Tax records show decline in Alberta farmers’ income
The StatCan data isn’t easy to parse, but the trend in recent years has been downwards
Reading Time: 2 minutes Even before the pandemic and the drought, Alberta farmers — along with their Canadian counterparts — saw their incomes drop, according to the latest report from StatCan. “Farm families in Alberta earned the highest average total income nationally for a second consecutive year in 2019,” the federal agency said in a recent report. “However, their average […] Read more
Former federal agriculture minister Bob Speller, 65
Ontario MP served in Paul Martin's cabinet
A memorial will be held next week for Bob Speller, the Ontario businessman who served as Canada’s agriculture minister in the thick of the country’s BSE crisis. Speller, the MP for the southwestern Ontario riding of what’s now Haldimand-Norfolk from 1988 to 2004, died Thursday at age 65. A cause of death wasn’t given in […] Read more
B.C. again waives ag income threshold for farm properties
Some farms otherwise risked property tax reclassification
British Columbia farmers who’ve taken pandemic-induced losses in farm income will be able to keep their farm properties classified as such for another tax year. The province on Monday announced that for the second year running, it will waive the minimum farm income thresholds normally required for B.C. properties to be classified as farms for […] Read more
A great year for the bottom line of grain farmers
Farm income rose by half a billion in Alberta last year — although our neighbour did even better
Reading Time: 3 minutes Farm income in Alberta took a hefty jump last year, but nothing compared to our next-door neighbour. Net cash income rose by 15 per cent in Alberta to $3.9 billion, which is a $447-million increase from 2019. But in Saskatchewan, net cash income skyrocketed to $6.4 billion — a whopping 78 per cent increase of […] Read more
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